


Watcher

by Oparu



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-10
Updated: 2010-05-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 08:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>be_lanna</b> wrote awesome Janeway/Torres "Year of Hell" fic <a href="http://be-lanna.livejournal.com/177954.html">Fire Rescue</a>, and I couldn't go to class without getting this out of my head. For you, darling. ;)  (my first Janeway/Torres fic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watcher

At first you think it's because you miss your mother. You've never been close to her, there's too much anger and bitterness fuelled by the genes you share. You're not even sure she knows you're out here, in the middle of nowhere, guiding a stubborn little ship home across the Delta Quadrant. Miral might be proud, but you doubt it. You doubt a lot of things. Except, oddly enough, her.

You hated her at first. She stranded you, she didn't trust you; hell, she barely even made you chief engineer.

Now you smile when she walks into your engine room, and you're glad to see her even if she has her hands on her hips and that look. You know the one. She's one of the first people you've met as stubborn as you.

It doesn't rule her, in fact, it seems to coexist with what Tom calls, the touchy-feely captain. He's divided it into levels, of course, but you have your own. Pat on the shoulder, you've done well, Lieutenant, buck up, stop frowning you'll scare the warp core. Sometimes the hand lingers and it's closer to your neck, and you wonder if there's a few Betazoid genes mixed in there, hiding behind those blue eyes.

Klingons don't usually have blue eyes.

No one has eyes like hers.

She wants you to be proud of yourself, to see the potential for greatness she insists she sees every day. She's proud of you, and that means more than you thought it ever could. Chakotay looks after you like a little sister, and you want him to be happy. You tease him, and talk back. You'd never do that to her because she's something special. Maybe she's more vulnerable.

You never see her smile when she's alone. Her guard, a concept you're intimately familiar with, is always up. Except when it's not, and you have to wonder if you'll find her beautiful when she cries. You spent years trying to teach yourself not to cry like a human. Klingons don't cry. They howl, and wail and break things. You've got the latter down to an art, but you imagine- then immediately feel guilty for the transgression- that she's beautiful when she cries. Not that she does, at least not in front of you.

Not in front of Chakotay either, and that saves you from having to be jealous. Even if she wants him, you can't blame her because you did for awhile, he's clearly off limits. If the first officer is, than that must apply to the chief engineer as well. So you drift, you eat with Tom Paris and let him flirt with you because he's determined enough to be fascinating. He makes you laugh.

You wonder, of course, how close Chakotay gets. You wonder for her, more than him. Chakotay could have someone else. If he didn't want to be alone, he'd be discreet and find someone lucky to have him.

You don't think she would.

You don't think she can.

Sometimes you watcher her fingers toy with her stylus, or play with her tea cup and imagine what they'd feel like. No one questions you, not even Tom. You're far more discreet than you'd ever give yourself credit for being. No one suspects. You think Kes might have, eventually, but she had such a knack for those kinds of things. She wanted Tom. Sometimes, when he kisses your cheek and leaves you in the mess hall, you think he might have been happier with her. She was, maybe is, good at so many things you just can't do.

It seems to be all right. Nothing is out of order, everything continues. The ship hums. Perhaps it'll always be this way. You'll smile when you see her. You'll do your best work for her, and with her, and she'll laugh and thank you for shaving the ship even though you couldn't have done it without her.

You'll peek at her legs on the rare special occasion when she wears a dress, and you wish she'd take up parasailing. You're an excellent instructor. Not that she has time, or you'd ever offer. Okay, maybe once in a dream that left you breathless and wishing you had fought harder when Tom left to go back to his quarters. You like having him there in the middle of the night. As much as he loves his bad boy image, he's more solid than he looks. He's a rock for you and she's somewhere out there in the stars.

You give up on sleep and creep into the mess hall. No one should be there, and you like the quiet. You hoard your replicator rations because you never know when you'll be able to bribe Tom or Harry for something you really want. You end up sitting in the corner, letting your tea get cold. You'll drink it anyway.

She asks if she can join you and you nearly spill the cup across the table. You might be blushing, but it's always hard to tell with Klingons. Her hair's mussed, and you spent more than the moment you'd allow imagining what it feels like to straighten it. She seems preoccupied, not the way you are, and that's your salvation. It could be the Hirogen, of the Borg, or the untold demons out in the blackness between stars; whatever it is, it's keeping her awake.

She fidgets with her cup and you remember the last time you saw her drink anything but coffee it was champagne and she was smiling. She told you a story, something she felt foolish for you loved about Indiana, and getting lost in a corn maze. You'd never be lost. You could smell you're way back to a place like the fair she's talking about. The food would give it away.

But she was lost.

Young, naive little Kathryn Janeway got lost when she was a child. She joked that the Delta Quadrant was just one big maze, and of course, it was her fault. She smiled, but you saw the pain there in her blue eyes. At a loss for what to say, you patted her shoulder. Good job, captain, buck up. It'll be all right.

She covered your hand, squeezed it hard enough that you wondered if this was it. If you'd at last see her cry but you didn't then.

One of her hands lies flat on the table in front of you. The other lets go of her cup and spreads out next to it. Her fingers are so delicate that it's hard to imagine all the responsibility they hold. She's not talking, and neither are you, but that seems to be all right.

She takes a breath and if you weren't half-Klingon, you'd never hear it catch in her throat.

She finally looks at you, her eyes too bright and too soft in the darkness. She asks if you got a letter from home.

You shake your head. You didn't expect one. Your parents aren't the type, and your friends are in jail, or dead. You're numb enough from that you can barely comprehend what happened. It stalks you like a predator in the darkness.

Something else is stalking her.

She says she did, and her fingers twitch and threaten to retreat. This might be the only chance you have to hold them, so you reach out. You clasp her cool ones in your own and she stops. You fear you've offended her, but she squeezes back. Her grip is sure, strong and it hits you like a photon torpedo that she needed your touch as much as you needed to touch her.

She asks if she can tell you something personal. You nod, dumbstruck. She pulls back a hand to brush the tear from her eye and confesses that she hates that they found the array. She hates all the letters, and hell, in the middle of the night, she hates the whole damn Alpha Quadrant.

You smile. You understand hating things. She catches your grin and wonders.

You'd break a table, if you were her. The last time you were--

She says dumped, so you don't have to.

Your palm's still up, and to your great surprise her hand slips back into it.

She'd have to explain why she needed a new table, if she broke hers. It's a small ship.

Well, you say, smiling. Your table tripped.

She giggles and you see her. Young, naive little Kathryn Janeway. The one who got lost in a corn maze. She grew up beautiful.

Tripped? She asks, amused.

Tables are clumsy, you tell her seriously. Your insistence makes her continue to laugh and you start telling her about Lisa Redding before you realise that you may have just gone too far. Lisa Redding had the most incredible blue eyes but they pale compared to the ones across from you.

She doesn't quite understand, or she can't let herself, but you talk. You tell her how you smashed the table in the academy's dorm room and she tells you about Mark.

He's an idiot.

Even if she was thousands of light years away, if you had her, you'd never let her go. 


End file.
